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Monday, January 11, 2016

We have three new books to give away this week: copies of OTHER BROKEN THINGS, TEEN FRANKENSTEIN, and THE KILLING JAR. There are also six other YA titles releasing this week, perfect for rounding out the summer break for our readers in the Southern Hemisphere.

YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS THIS WEEK

From the author of Bleed Like Me, which Booklist called "edgy, dark, and turbulent with passion," comes another compelling and gritty novel about addiction and forbidden romance, starring a fearless, unforgettable heroine.

Natalie's not an alcoholic. She doesn't have a problem. Everybody parties, everybody does stupid things, like getting in their car when they can barely see. Still, with six months of court-ordered AA meetings required, her days of vodka-filled water bottles are over.

Unfortunately, her old friends want the party girl or nothing. Even her up-for-anything ex seems more interested in rehashing the past than actually helping Nat.

But then a recovering alcoholic named Joe inserts himself into Nat's life, and things start looking up. Joe is funny, he's smart, and he calls her out in a way no one ever has.

He's also older. A lot older.

Nat's connection to Joe is overwhelming, but so are her attempts to fit back into her old world, all while battling the constant urge to crack a bottle and blur that one thing she's been desperate to forget.

Now, in order to make a different kind of life, Nat must pull together her broken parts and learn to fight for herself.

Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Other Broken Things?

One of my best friends from college OD’d about four years ago. It broke my heart and also started me thinking a lot about addiction and the way it works. I wanted to write Nat’s story because I couldn’t shake the idea that addiction can start at such a young age and that sometimes the only way out of it is through it. I think a lot of people don’t understand the relationship between addiction and mental illness and there’s a lot of blame that is pointed at addicts without a lot of compassion. I hope Nat’s story shines some light on the things we do to escape our own demons.

She’s haunted by a violent tragedy she can’t explain. Kenna’s past has kept people—even her own mother—at a distance for years. Just when she finds a friend who loves her and life begins to improve, she’s plunged into a new nightmare. Her mom and twin sister are attacked, and the dark powers Kenna has struggled to suppress awaken with a vengeance.

On the heels of the assault, Kenna is exiled to a nearby commune, known as Eclipse, to live with a relative she never knew she had. There, she discovers an extraordinary new way of life as she learns who she really is, and the wonders she’s capable of. For the first time, she starts to feel like she belongs somewhere. That her terrible secret makes her beautiful and strong, not dangerous. But the longer she stays at Eclipse, the more she senses there is something malignant lurking underneath it all. And she begins to suspect that her new family has sinister plans for her…

MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

For readers of A Game of Thrones and Legend: Traveler, the sequel to Seeker.

Quin Kincaid is a Seeker. Her legacy is an honor, an ancient role passed down for generations. But what she learned on her Oath night changed her world forever.

Quin pledged her life to deception. Her legacy as a Seeker is not noble but savage. Her father, a killer. Her uncle, a liar. Her mother, a casualty. And the boy she once loved is out for vengeance, with her family in his sights.

Yet Quin is not alone. Shinobu, her oldest companion, might now be the only person she can trust. The only one who wants answers as desperately as she does.

But the deeper they dig into the past, the darker things become. There are long-vanished Seeker families, shadowy alliances, and something else: a sinister plan begun generations ago, with the power to destroy them all.

The past is close. And it will destroy them all.

Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Traveler?

The world of the Seekers opens up into a larger tapestry in TRAVELER. I had always imagined this larger world, but I loved getting to write it. New characters and dangers threaten almost immediately, because Quin, Shinobu, John and Maud have stumbled into old plans that will entangle all of them.

I also loved giving a different perspective on some of the characters we thought we knew. John’s mother, who was only a memory, and Quin’s father, who was a distant, vicious adult in the first book, appear in TRAVELER at a different point in their lives. We get to see, up close, what the previous generation was like when they were teenagers, and how they shaped the world Quin and the others now have to face. We get an intimate view of what they were like before they became the harsh adults we met in the first book.

Eight years ago, Addie Webster was the victim of the most notorious kidnapping case of the decade. Addie vanished—and her high-profile parents were forced to move on.

Mark Webster is now president of the United States, fighting to keep the oval office after a tumultuous first term. Then, the unthinkable happens: the president’s daughter resurfaces. Addie is brought back into her family’s fold, but who is this sixteen-year-old girl with a quiet, burning intelligence now living in the White House? There are those in the president’s political circle who find her timely return suspicious.

When the NSA approaches Darrow Fergusson, Addie’s childhood best friend and the son of the president’s chief of staff, he doesn't know what to think. How could this slip of a girl be a threat to national security? But at the risk of having his own secrets exposed by the powerful government agency, Darrow agrees to spy on Addie.

It soon becomes apparent that Addie is much more than the traumatized victim of a sick political fringe group. Addie has come with a mission. Will she choose to complete it? And what will happen if she does?

Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Zero Day?

Thank you for asking! I've always loved pulse-pounding stories filled with action, intrigue, and characters with questionable motives (and I hope readers will find ZERO DAY has all of that!). But if I had to pick one favorite thing about this book, it would probably be the setting. Washington, DC has been my adopted city for more than 15 years, and I love the diversity, architecture, culture and people here. It was a lot of fun setting scenes in some of my favorite places (like the Air and Space Museum -- I'm always awestruck whenever I look up at the planes suspended from the ceiling and consider that somehow humankind once looked up at the sky and improbably found a way to defy gravity and take flight). And, of course, nothing beats writing about the most iconic DC landmark of all -- the White House. There's an undercurrent of power that ripples through this city, and it was fascinating to imagine what it would be like to be thrust -- like Addie when she returns -- right into the thick of it, and with a mission to boot.

MORE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS NEW IN STORES NEXT WEEK

This riveting novel in verse, perfect for fans of Jacqueline Woodson and Toni Morrison, explores American history and race through the eyes of a teenage boy embracing his newfound identity

Connor’s grandmother leaves his dad a letter when she dies, and the letter’s confession shakes their tight-knit Italian-American family: The man who raised Dad is not his birth father.

But the only clues to this birth father’s identity are a class ring and a pair of pilot’s wings. And so Connor takes it upon himself to investigate—a pursuit that becomes even more pressing when Dad is hospitalized after a stroke. What Connor discovers will lead him and his father to a new, richer understanding of race, identity, and each other.

The Assassin's Masqueby Sarah ZettelHardcoverHMH Books for Young ReadersReleased 1/12/2016

Things are turning around for seventeen-year-old Peggy Fitzroy, a once-orphaned spy. Her father is back from the dead, and her unwanted engagement has been called off for good. But when a mysterious veiled woman shows up, Peggy uncovers a fresh slew of questions about her past, present, and future.

Now Peggy is back at the palace, unsure of the loyalties she thought she held. With the Jacobite uprising stalking ever closer to the throne, it's imperative that Peggy discover who she can really trust. Can she save herself and the royal family, or is she doomed as a pawn in this most deadly game?

Morgan didn’t mean to do anything wrong that day. Actually, she meant to do something right. But her kind act inadvertently played a role in a deadly tragedy. In order to move on, Morgan must learn to forgive—first someone who did something that might be unforgivable, and then, herself.

But Morgan can’t move on. She can’t even move beyond the front door of the apartment she shares with her mother and little brother. Morgan feels like she’s underwater, unable to surface. Unable to see her friends. Unable to go to school.

When it seems Morgan can’t hold her breath any longer, a new boy moves in next door. Evan reminds her of the salty ocean air and the rush she used to get from swimming. He might be just what she needs to help her reconnect with the world outside.

Underwater is a powerful, hopeful debut novel about redemption, recovery, and finding the strength it takes to face your past and move on.

Up From the Seaby Leza LowitzHardcoverCrown Books for Young ReadersReleased 1/12/2016

A powerful novel-in-verse about how one teen boy survives the March 2011 tsunami that devastates his coastal Japanese village.

On that fateful day, Kai loses nearly everyone and everything he cares about in the storm. When he’s offered a trip to New York to meet kids whose lives were changed by 9/11, Kai realizes he also has a chance to look for his estranged American father. Visiting Ground Zero on its tenth anniversary, Kai learns that the only way to make something good come out of the disaster back home is to return there and help rebuild his town.

Heartrending yet hopeful, Up from the Sea is a story about loss, survival, and starting anew.

Fans of Jame Richards’s Three Rivers Rising and teens who read Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust as middle graders will embrace this moving story. An author’s note includes numerous sources detailing actual events portrayed in the story.

Running through my ruined town,
pack flapping like wings
against my back.
Plowing through blocks
strewn with heaps of
refrigeratorsblackboardsbicyclestaxis
bustedpianosshelvesdesksstairs
allmixedtogether
in a marshland
grave.

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